Local TD Denis Naughten has been informed by the Health Minister that the report on the review of the intensive and coronary care services at Portiuncula Hospital is expected to be completed shortly.
The consultants appointed to review the service at Portiuncula Hospital, and 36 other hospitals throughout the country, were requested “to provide advice on the appropriate model and configuration of critical care provision”.
“In other words the review of critical care services will inform the HSE with regard to the future of the intensive care unit and the coronary care unit at Portiuncula Hospital as well as at other hospitals throughout the country,” explained Deputy Naughten.
"In light of the expressed views of Professor Brendan Drumm that Portiuncula Hospital should not be catering for critical care type patients and the Hanly Report which wants to see all such services centralised in hospitals like UCHG, there is a real concern that this could be the death knell by the back door for emergency services at Portiuncula Hospital.
“It is now vital that when the report is completed it is published, rather than having it implemented behind closed doors, with the deliberate running down of local services. This plan is the complete opposite to the one proposed by Fine Gael in its FairCare health policy, which would see services at local hospitals not only retained but enhanced by ensuring that decisions regarding services are not made by faceless consultants in Dublin but by local people working with the local hospital management.
“Our FairCare plan will introduce a ‘money-follows-the-patient’ budgeting system so that hospitals like Portiuncula are paid for how many patients they treat. Patients will no longer be seen as ‘costs’ to the health service, but as sources of income instead,” added Deputy Naughten.
Full details of the Fine Gael FairCare plan are available at www.faircare.ie or by texting ’faircare’ followed by your name and address to 086-1708800 (standard text rates apply ).
